Michael Hiltzik: Conservative attacks on abortion depend on a law that courts have snubbed for 100 years
Nothing reflects that show-stopping lyric "everything old is new again" like the tactics of the antiabortion movement — specifically, its reliance on a long-discredited 1873 law to eviscerate women's healthcare rights in the modern age.
The law is the Comstock Act, which Congress passed during the post-Civil War period of puritan reaction at the behest of one of the outstanding bluenoses of American history.
The law drafted by Anthony Comstock, passed by Congress and signed by President Grant outlawed the mailing of any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious book, pamphlet, picture, paper, print or other publication of an indecent character, ... or any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of abortion." Penalties ranged up to 10 years.
By any measure, the law is an antique. Yet it was cited in by Trump-appointed federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk reversing the Food
